


Time-Keeping

by samidha



Series: S3-04 Hiatus and S4 Reactions and Sundry [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-18
Updated: 2011-01-18
Packaged: 2018-12-14 11:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11782110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/samidha
Summary: He suddenly aches for the return of the knives and the man who wields them.





	Time-Keeping

There is no light.

He hangs in darkness so thick it eats into his skin, rubs into him like sandpaper leaving him rough and raw, his skin weeping blood from endless sores. 

The knives are easier, quicker, and he files this away, suddenly aching for the return of the man (demon, not a man, he has to remind himself. Once a man, but never a man now) who calls himself his master.

He wants to see Alastair’s shadow, wants the light to seep back into everything so that shadows matter again.

He doesn’t know how long it’s been, only that he craves the light like water, like salvation.

Craves the knife because it must be wielded, slipped between skin and bone and guided into him, through him.

Time means nothing here, and yet he tries to count it, the light and the presence of others the only real indicators that he has.

Even when the presence he’s sent is Sam, even when it’s his father.

Sam frightens him more. Even when he knows it to be only a demon wearing Sam, can see the twisted darkness behind his brother’s eyes, under his skin.

 _All you have to do is climb down. This will be over_ , Sam says, like bringing the knives to other souls will save him somehow, like it could ever solve anything.

Like Sam could somehow be there beside him again, his equal. 

He knows enough to know that isn’t true. That it isn’t Sam. He can’t be fooled, not by something with a face as twisted as Ruby’s, as pitted and worn away as Lilith’s.

He doesn’t know where Sam is, only knows that he isn’t here, isn’t one of them.

That he is safe. He has to be. Dean carries it with him, uses it as armor.

 _Climb down_ , the demon says, and Dean spits in its face.

And then there is nothing but the dark.


End file.
